


A More Than Smoke Satinalia

by thesecondseal



Series: More Than Smoke: A Noir AU [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Alternate Universe - Noir, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Film Noir, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Satinalia, Smut, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:45:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noir AU winter holiday cheer from Satinalias past, present, and future. </p><p>Lots of silliness here. A little angst. Some smut. Chapters will be clearly labeled past, present, and future.</p><p>A reminder that Garrett and Essa were a couple in the past. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thedas' New Worst Euphemism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Satinalia Past.
> 
> Prompted by TheMightyZan on tumblr: "I would like to offer a prompt that combines the holidays and smut. Garret and Essa, specifics can be up to you but it needs to have someone making a sexual innuendo about basting the ham *wink wink nudge nudge*"
> 
> I would apologize, but I'm not really sorry?

 

 

“Hey! Essa!”

Bethany’s call was muted by the time it drifted from the kitchen. Her cheerful voice barely pierced the spritely Satinalia carol Garrett had turned up too loud in a lame attempt to hide his and Essa’s reunion. He had just gotten back from a ten week series of small fight exhibitions across the Marches. It had taken them all of five minutes to get Essa’s skirt up around her waist, her back against her bedroom wall.

She would have been impressed if she weren’t currently far too busy chasing an absolutely brilliant orgasm.

“Don’t you. dare stop, Hawke.”

The ragged command was interspersed with staccato breaths; Essa didn’t have enough air to threaten him properly. She could only trust that he knew she was serious, that he could feel the urgent winding of her body. If her guess was right, they had about fifteen minutes before Bethany became truly annoyed with Essa’s absence from the Satinalia preparations.

“Give me some credit, Trevelyan.” Garrett’s one-handed grip on her ass adjusted to keep her from sliding too far down the wall. They wasn’t time for interruptions or distractions. By the Mabari, it had been too damn long.

“I’ll give you--" she flexed her thighs, shifted around him just right. She finished her assurance on a gasp. “Anything you want.”

“Liar.” His hold on her panties tightened and Essa heard the elastic creak in protest. The lace trim dug into her skin as Garrett tugged the scrap of silk farther to the side, thrusts never faltering.

“Essa!” Bethany’s shout was closer now and Essa tried to remember if she had locked her door.

“It’s locked,” Garrett grunted, teeth just below her ear.

“Thank the Maker!” She met the roll of his hips with her own, drew a shudder from both of them.

“So, I’m the Maker now.”

Essa snorted, too weak to retort. She flexed her heels against the small of his back, pulling herself forward at the exact right moment to meet him, and dragging a groan of pleasure from them both.

“Just,” she panted, shoved her hair back from eyes. “Ignore her.”

Garrett’s trousers and briefs had been pushed somewhere down around his knees and unless the apartment had suddenly caught fire, she couldn’t think of anything more important than what they were doing.

“Have I given you a reason to doubt me, woman?” he demanded quietly.

“Not yet.”

She braced against the wall with her arms and flexed her calves, increasing the angle and the blissful friction between them. Garrett lost his balance and the single missed beat left Essa giggling. She caught at his shoulders to keep from falling.

“How close are you?” He dropped a kiss on her smiling mouth.

“Embarrassingly close,” she muttered turning her lips to his jaw. She grazed his earlobe with her teeth, smiled when he stumbled again.  

“Essa!”

Bethany’s third shout was closer again, and Garrett startled, went maddeningly, frustratingly still. Essa glared at him and when she opened her mouth to object, he pressed his lips to hers, tongue sliding warm and wet against her bottom lip, scattering her thoughts and disrupting her protests.  His fingers tightened on her hip as she kissed him back, a wild scrape of teeth and clinging lips before she realized she’d fallen for his intention. Essa’s fingers clenched to fists in his hair.

“I will injure you,” she whispered furiously into the hot mingling of their too-short breaths.

He had the audacity to wink at her. “Not just yet you won’t.”

Bastard was right and of course he knew it. Garrett snapped his hips forward hard enough that her head thumped against the wall. Essa’s eyes closed on a moan and she slapped one hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to stop the sound from reaching the hall. She heard the watercolor above the bed fall from its nails.

“I hate you.”

The declaration was incoherent behind the tight clasp of her fingers, but Essa knew that he heard her just the same. She had said the words to him plenty, could only hope he believed them. His smile curved sharp and bright, the most dangerous edge ever held against her throat, before his lips wandered down her neck, trailing small, seemingly-innocent pecks until he reached her pulse.

“That’s fine,” he teased, laughter rich beneath kisses that had begun to linger. Essa sighed, hands clawing for support against the wall. Her body trembled and there would be paint and plaster beneath her nails by the time they were through. “But you could hate me quietly? That is my sister not three paces from your door.”

He peppered sharp nips over the desperate rush of her pulse and then his hips picked up that same rhythm, driving her up with her ruthless insistence. Essa pulled his hair in silent retort, opened her eyes to find him watching her face, his gaze shining dark in the soft glow of the string lights around her window.

“You’re wearing too much,” she accused, restless stare darting from his face to chest.

They had gotten his shirt unbuttoned–she couldn’t exactly recall when–but not off. The white button-down hung open over his undershirt and the soft cotton was a frustrating barrier between them, abrading her oversensitive skin every time she pressed her chest to his. She had already considered ripping it down the center as he’d done hers, but she couldn’t remember if he had a spare here. She yanked his shirttails from the undone waist of his trousers, shoved the fabric from his shoulders. The sleeves caught at his elbows and Essa left them to fight impatiently with his tshirt.

“A little help,” she mumbled gruffly.

“Yes, ma’am.” Garrett let go of her to pull the shirts from his arms. Together they held her against the wall with nothing more than the press of his hips to hers and the strength of Essa’s abdominals.

“I missed you.” His eyes roamed hungrily over the taut extension of her body and her breath betrayed her, catching for one scittering heartbeat at the earnest assertion. Garrett tossed his shirts to the floor behind him with a grin. “And I’ll deny that under oath.”

Essa’s breath returned in a rush and she clung to the taunt. “Of course you will.”

He leaned back toward her, hands trailing up the outside of her arms to tug her torn shirt from her shoulders. His thumbs swept in gentle arcs across her suddenly chilled skin, grazed the outside curves of her breasts.

“I am not,” she managed around the refutation around a whimper. Her hands splayed across his chest, palm holding the deep pounding of his heart.  “Saying it back.”

She feathered touches along his ribs, dragged the backs of her nails over the spots she knew would make him weak. Garrett scowled, almost dropped her again.

“Of course you aren’t.”

Essa smirked. He drove her back against the wall in retaliation. Plaster dust sifted down from the ceiling and for a moment he was so perfectly, completely inside of her that she nearly came.

The cups of her bra were shoved down beneath her breasts. Garrett’s skin was lighter than hers and the contrast of bronze, rose, and tan against the curve of black lace was the most erotic thing Essa had ever seen. He pinched her nipple gently, his touch too careful against desperate flesh. She sighed in frustration, arched toward his hand in silent askance, perilously close to begging. 

“Hawke.”

His name was a lust-filled warning and Garrett finally squeezed harder enough to hurt, the rough touch timed with the frantic joining of their bodies. The sound that escaped her throat was something between a growl and a purr, though she would deny that too.  

“I hate you,” she said again, just to make herself feel better. But that word had lost all meaning between them.

His left hand was still toying with her breast as he slid his right hand down between them, fingers grazing her clit until she clenched around him, pressed small helpless sounds to his shoulder. He caught her panties and jerked them to the side again, knuckles digging into her hipbone. Essa smiled, teeth and tongue collecting salt from his skin. Their impatience was going to leave behind bruises, and she would have been lying if she didn’t admit just how much that turned her on.

“Close?”

“Was there a number we were going for?” She chuckled. Already there had been so many small quakes.

“I want you screaming,” he reminded her.

“Screaming isn’t exactly wise right now,” she puffed against his neck.

Garrett pinched her nipple again and she sagged on the wall, letting him take her weight as as she lay warm and boneless to catch her breath. He nudged his head and neck against the tangle of her arms.

“Let go,” he muttered tersely. “I need to reach you.”

She was too obedient, she thought, releasing him immediately, pressing herself back to give him whatever room he needed. She caught a glimpse of a smirk as he bent toward her. He would give her shit for that later, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to care. His mouth fell to her nipple and he licked her once, then again, an indulgent counterpoint to his rougher treatment of the other.

“Dear Maker,” she muttered. “You have to switch, you’re going to kill me.”

But she craved that divergence. Whatever burned between them did so in endless variance, rough tenderness and playful brutality, each contradiction overlaying one after another until sometimes her head swam with them. Her body was no different, begging for touch both too harsh and too gentle, and in the months since she first fucked him silent in the back of  _the Tourney_ , Garrett had tested the bounds of that delicate balance, helped her to find so many edges.

“You can take a little more,” he murmured.

He swirled his tongue over puckered flesh before he taking hold of her in earnest. Essa sank her teeth into her lower lip, sucking the kiss-swollen curve into her mouth to push back the cry that threatened as desire coiled, hot and bright.

Her vision blew white.

“Essa?” Bethany knocked on the door. “I’m wrist deep in the sugar cookies. I need you to come baste the ham.”

Garrett’s mouth left her breast with a pop, and the sound seemed louder than the radio. The song had switched and this one was not nearly as merry. Essa leaned back against the wall in frustration, breath exploding in an almost-sob.

“Yes, Essa,” Garrett pressed his face between her breasts, laughter a warm rumble, hand falling back to her hip as he continued his slow thrusts. “Come.” The order was low, whispering cool against the moisture his mouth had left on her skin. “Baste the ham.”

It was perhaps the worst euphemism in all of Thedas, and Essa would be forever proud of herself for not laughing.

“I’m going to fucking kill you for that.” But her orgasm still hovered, just beyond the ridiculousness of it all.

“No, you’re not.” He adjusted the angle of their hips more precisely and Essa was forced to muffle a scream against his shoulder. “I’m going to retreat while you’re in a post-coital haze.”

Bethany knocked again. “Essa, honey? Are you…asleep?”

“I’m awake!” Essa shouted next to Garrett’s ear. He winced and she stuck her tongue out at him, not even caring that he couldn’t see her face. “I just need…five minutes. Can it wait that long?”

“Sure…” There was uncertainty in her voice, but Bethany’s steps grew faint as she finally, finally walked away.

“Five minutes?” Garrett raised his brows at her.

“Yes, five minutes.”  

She tightened her legs around his waist, arching her back off of the wall and propelling him back toward the bed. Bless the man for his ability to multitask; she was still so blighted close. Essa trailed blunt nails up his spine, watched his eyes slide shut on a deep shudder.

“Consider it a challenge, or so help me I’m going to tell your sister you snuck in here to fuck me first instead of telling her that you’re home.”

 


	2. In Search of Miracles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Satinalia Past. Garrett x Essa. Bethany Hawke. Fluff.

Kirkwall may have cornered the market on dark and gloomy, but not this time of year.  Snow covered the dirt and the grime, hid the city’s sins beneath a crisp blanket of white. For a week the world was transformed as if by Satina’s magic. Nearly every window was adorned in white lights and golden moons, silver stars glittering beneath the hazy sky as if they could chase away the shadows that haunted them the rest of the year. In the abandoned parks, folks would gather to sing carols, and children decorated trees and bushes with paper moons, stars, and Andraste’s blessed mabari. Every bakery and coffee shop was selling saffron buns, the honeyed yeast rolls shimmering golden with spice. Mulled wines had replaced most of the stronger spirits in the taverns.

Damn shame, that.

“Whiskey?”

Essa leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, a garland of greenery, lights, and silver tinsel over her head. She was still wearing her work clothes, a smart navy suit that she always made look dangerous. Or maybe that was just the woman. She was holding an old-fashioned in each hand, smile was as warm as the lights, grey eyes as cold as the winter sky.

“Have I told you you’re my favorite dame, Trevelyan?”

They were spending most of the winter festival at Essa’s apartment and Garrett was glad. The family estate wasn’t quite ready for “a good ol’ traditional” Satinalia and if he were being honest, Garrett wasn’t ready for Satinalia in his family’s home.  Now that their mother was gone, he didn’t know if he ever would be. How his sister could cling so tightly to the holiday was beyond him, but then, until he met Essa, he had never known anyone who loved Satinalia the way Bethany did.

“Only when you want something.” Essa grinned, took a slow sip from her glass. She  watched him over the rim as it lowered.  “Or after you’ve gotten something you wanted.”

It was good for Bethany to have someone else celebrate with. Holidays had been hard for him after his father passed, but his mother and siblings had been possessed of belligerent cheer.  Bethany’s had faltered only once and that had been after they lost Carver. Now it was just the two of them and Garrett tried—Maker, he tried!—to put on a happy face for Bethany. He had decorated both of their apartments and Varric’s with white and gold string lights and what had to be a million moon lanterns, but he knew it was more than trappings and bows.

“Thank you.” Garrett slipped one arm around her waist, drew her close with a hand played across her back as he took a drink from her with the other. She smelled like peppermint and vanilla and wood smoke.  “And I don’t just mean for the whiskey.”

In the center of the arch a kissing ball hung from a pale blue ribbon, and even as she turned her face up to his, he wondered at the wisdom of such easy affection.

“I know.” And the reply could just as easily have been to words unspoken. Her smile faded on the edges, curving to something sad and restless. “Kiss me anyway.”

He bent his lips to hers, lingered over the flavors of whiskey and orange bitters on her tongue, and pretended that he couldn’t taste the hints of heartbreak yet to come.  Her empty hand was on the back of his neck, short nails scraping the sensitive skin beneath the shaggy ends of his hair.

“Has Beth forgiven you yet?” she murmured against his mouth.

“For…” He had a list of transgressions of course.

Essa’s fingers tangled, held fast and she slanted his mouth harder against hers. Her tongue was a warm, brash slide.

“For yesterday.” The words puffed out as he backed her against the door casing. “For…”

His lips trailed to her jaw, and for a moment he let his teeth worry gently over the scar that ran toward her jugular.

“For our ‘disgraceful’,” she sighed, leaned into his touch. “’Debauchery’.”

Garrett chuckled.  “Not…” He nipped her bottom lip and she sighed, leaned more fully against him until he could feel every curve, strong and soft. Maker, preserve him, but this woman was his favorite kind of trouble. “Not quite yet. She only threw one shoe and dozen curses though, so I think she’ll come around.”

Essa snickered. “Then you should get your hand off of my ass. She’s about—“

“Joyous night!” Bethany shouted, throwing open the front door and stumbling inside. She had her arms so loaded with brightly wrapped parcels that they could barely see the pompom on top of her red knitted cap. “You two better be dressed with six inches between you.”

“Six—“ Garrett began, fully intended to further traumatize his sister as he reluctantly let Essa go. Essa slapped her hand over his mouth, eyes sparkling.

“A full arm’s length,” she declared so dryly that Bethany giggled behind her festal barricade . “I can uncover his mouth if you really want me to.”

“Oh, no, please keep him silent.” She shuffled farther into the living room, dropped her boxes to the couch with a tumble and clatter. “We can call it our Satinalia miracle.”

Bethany grinned, cheeks bright with cold and eyes dancing merrily above the colorful riot of her scarf.  She crossed back to the door to take off her boots, shaking snow from her coat as she took it off and hung it up. Garrett took advantage of her distraction to lick Essa’s palm.

“Ew.” Essa wiped her wet hand on his face with a scowl that didn’t quite hide her smile. “Sorry, Beth. It’d take the Maker himself to shut your brother up.”

“Or a better strategy,” Garrett offered helpfully, waggling his brows at her while Bethany’s back was still turned.


	3. Fury and Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a tumblr prompt "trying to distract the other with sex while they’re “busy”, pairing of your choosing. :D"
> 
> It should be noted that it was not actually the pairing of my choosing but someone who wanted plausible deniability with this whole Garrett and Essa thing. :)
> 
> Surprisingly SFW. Santinalia Past. Garrett Hawke and Essa Trevelyan. Fluff.
> 
> *for folks new to this series Garrett mentions hitting her. He's not an abusive jerk. They're both boxers and they train/spar together often.

"Are you trying to make me hang myself?” Essa demanded.

She was balancing on a kitchen chair, one foot in the seat, one on the top run of the ladder back, a set of white string lights tangling around her body as she tried to drape them around the heavy, gilt-framed mirror that hung above the mantle.

“If that’s what you think I’m trying to do,” Garrett smirked, dark gaze catching hers through the smoke of the mirror. “I either hit you harder last night than we thought, or I’m doing this wrong.”

Essa scowled. “You’re taller than I am.” She valiantly ignored the rough skim of his nails down her spine.  “You could be helping, not hindering.”

Her shirt had risen to brush her ribs as she reached overhead and Garret was much more interested in the way those inches of exposed skin seemed to glow bronze beneath those tiny points of light.  She had no few scars shining silver-white, but there was a new one low on back. The puckered skin was still red and angry and if he let himself remember how she had come by it, so was Garrett.

“This is your sister’s…” Essa’s annoyance wavered on a groan. “Party.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

He pressed a kiss to the constant warmth of her skin, swept his tongue across a pebbling of goosebumps with a hum of appreciation; his lips had been waiting weeks to taste this latest proof of her valor, to welcome it among its myriad brethren. He knew the rest as if by name. Every blade and bullet, every fury and grace. Every mistake. He and Essa had traded war stories one almost-drunken night sometime after they realized whatever they had between them was persisting.

Not that either of them was going to admit anything so foolish.

“Garrett…”

His name was a sigh, soft and yielding. The chair wobbled and she mumbled wordless curses as he wrapped his arms around her hips, holding her steady and setting his teeth against her flesh.

“We have an hour before the party,” she reminded him, voice rigid even as her body pressed back toward him.

Garrett pulled her down, turned to drop her on the couch in a tangle of twinkling lights. She glared up at him, hair a tumble around her flushed face, lips lifting in a helpless smile.

“Then that gives us thirty minutes.” He raised one brow in askance.

“Fine…” Essa dropped her head back onto the couch, feigned a put-upon expression that had him grinning. “But then you’re hanging these damned lights.”


	4. But for the Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter combines Snowstorm and But for the Snow from tumblr. 
> 
> Satinalia Present. Cullen x Essa. Fluff. Some swooning, small subversion of gender roles, and a hints of gothic romance. (think Jane Eyre)
> 
> This would definitely fall during one of their "off agains." If you're keeping up with More Than Smoke, this would be after Haven. Before the beginning of Act V. 
> 
> Yes, I'm working on the next part from Essa's perspective). :)

 “And you’re sure you’ll be alright?”

Cari’s red lips were pressed too close to the phone as she tried to keep the concern in her voice from carrying across the near empty bar. Outside the storm winds howled, too loud to be mistaken for lonesome; winter was raging in from the Waking Sea. Sleet scattered hard across the windows like a spray of gunfire and Cari jumped at the sudden sound.

“Essa?” She shook the receiver in frustration, raised her voice and shouted again. “Essa?!”

The connection was bad. Cullen could hear static crackling across the line in hisses and pops.

“…fine! Really!” He could hear Essa hollering back. “…don’t worry…will call…when the storm…out.”

Cari slammed the phone down, the rare display of nerves giving away too many fears as she pulled her fox stole close around her neck.  Cullen glanced up from the glass of whiskey he’d been too long contemplating.

“She says she’s fine.”

She probably was, but that eased neither of their worries.  Cari’s grey eyes—so like Essa’s in color and shape, but lacking all guile—were narrowed at the corners, the delicate skin between them furrowed. The storm had rolled in on the heels of sunset and already most of Kirkwall was shut down.

“Are you staying here tonight?” Cullen asked glancing toward the stairs to indicate the small apartment she kept above the Tourney.

Cari nodded. “And before you ask, I have plenty of wood for the stove and anything else I might need.”

“Alright.” He stood up, tossed back the single swallow whiskey and let the spirits warm his heart. “If I leave now, I’ll make the last train.”

“You can’t be serious?” She glanced at the shuddering door. “Cullen, she says she’s fine.”

“Do you believe her?” he asked, jerking his chin toward the boarded windows. “I can’t imagine she’s faring any better on the cliffs than we are here.”

“She’s not ready to see you,” Cari said softly.

The events at Haven had rattled all of them.

“I know.” Cullen shrugged into his great coat, buttoned it high and cinched the belt tightly around his waist.

“Here.” Cari reached out and caught his lapel, pulled him close to where she sat. He watched, smile hidden, as she drew the thick silver fur from her neck.

“Your favor?” he asked as she settled the stole around the collar of his coat, securing it around his neck with the hidden snaps. He could smell the lingering of her perfume, a faint cold floral, rose petals beneath frost come too soon.

“It might help,” she offered hopefully. Another icy onslaught struck the windows and she shivered. “Be careful. If you can, let me know when you make it?”

“I’ll do my best.”

She kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

“Lock up behind me.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Stay warm.”

*

“You’re where?” Essa’s annoyance traveled just fine across the telephone lines that ran between her cottage and Midway’s nearly abandoned depot. Cullen wasn’t entirely certain that he wouldn’t have been able to hear her shouting over the storm without the aid of technology.

“The depot,” he repeated, tone calm and even. “Your sister was worried.”

“Fuck you for playing the sister card, Rutherford.”

He offered no apology and the line went silent. The wind shrieked through the cracks in the old clapboard, kicking up a swirl of fine ice and thick dust.

“I have half a mind to leave you there to freeze.”

She wouldn’t. At least, he was fairly certain she wouldn’t. There had been a moment in Haven when he thought she had forgiven him, but those seemed lost since their return to Kirkwall.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she grated. “Don’t you dare try to walk out here in this mess.”

She hung up the phone hard enough to hurt his ear had Cullen not been expecting the retaliation and pulled the receiver away from his head. He spent the next ten minutes burrowing into Cari’s stole and pacing through the dark interior of the shivering depot and wondering how she planned to make the usual twenty minute walk from the cottage to the depot in ‘a few.’ The weather, he thought, staring out the window at the blinding snow, would easily double that trek. He should have, perhaps, considered that he could freeze before he got to her.

“Come on!” The shout was muffled, as was the heavy pounding on the door.

She had arrived far more quickly than he expected. Cullen didn’t think mages could fly, but he also couldn’t imagine that the Order had ever been privy to the fullness of their charges potentials. He also hadn’t thought dragons existed, but he’d been wrong about that too. He yanked the door open, blinking in the faltering yellow glow of the depot’s only outside light. A gust of wind blew snow into his face, threatened to rip the doorknob from his hand, but Cullen held on, swiping at his eyes with fingers gone clumsy from the cold. By the time his vision cleared, he could only gape.

Essa and Geri were crowded against the entrance and for a moment all Cullen could see was the forder’s heaving sides and Essa’s boot.  The light faded, pulsed back on in a bright shower of sparks as the bulb blew. He had only a flash before he could see only darkness and snow, but that was enough to imprint the sight of her forever in his memory.

They belonged on the cover of one of the romance novels Cassandra denied loving so much. Essa wasn’t dressed nearly as many layers as he was—Cullen reminded himself she didn’t need them—but the forder was wearing a heavy blue blanket beneath his saddle and all four legs were wrapped in the same bright hue. He looked like a chevalier’s courser, the cold weather gear reminiscent of ancient barding and caparisons, and Geri stamped his hooves in place, eyes narrowed and mean as he stared through his heavy mask.

Essa’s legs held fast, calves flexing beneath the tight fabric of her breeches. She kicked her left foot free of the stirrup, reached one bare hand down to him while clutching Geri’s windswept mane with the other. The forder’s nostrils flared, his muscular body fighting against the wind and the storm. If Cullen remembered his literature correctly, this was the part where he was supposed to swoon.

“Sometime today, Rutherford,” Essa snapped.

Did the horse not have on a bridle? Cullen stared up through the all-encompassing press of cold and white, but couldn’t make out much beyond the unwavering hand before him. The snowy night shrieked in from the sea with dangerous intent and he buried his nose in the fur at his throat, seeking air warm enough to breathe. He was going to guess that now would be a bad time to tell Essa he couldn’t ride.

“And close the blighted door.”

He shut the door behind him, gloved fingers fumbling with the latch. She must have finally sensed his hesitance. Even over the wind, Cullen heard her sigh.

“Just hang on to me,” she said, voice colder than the storm. “I could have walked down here and back without a problem, but you would only freeze on the return.  Hold onto Geri with your legs and knees. You can’t squeeze him too hard through the saddle and his blanket.”

Her rough instruction was not comforting, but there was nothing to be done for it. Cullen put his foot in the stirrup and slipped his hand in hers. Essa’s fingers tightened around his and she hauled him up behind her as if he weighed nothing. He wrapped both arms around her waist, felt the world lurch around him as Geri shifted beneath their combined weight. Even through his coat and gloves, he could feel the heat coming off of her back.

Yeah, Cullen decided wryly. Swooning was definitely appropriate. He would have to admit to it later, let Cassandra tease him a bit when she was having a bad enough day that he couldn’t figure out another way to cheer her up.

“When we get back to the cottage,” Essa informed him before he could get too comfortable. “We’ll discuss how angry I am at you for being a complete idiot.”

She leaned forward over Geri’s neck, drawing Cullen with her. He felt one hand settle over his tightly laced fingers and then she muttered to Geri.

“Take us home.”

*

A bitter wind blew in from the storm-dark sea, driving before it a stinging spray of frozen rain. The winter night yawned around them, interminable darkness besieged by the whirling press of cold, wet snow. The forder’s hooves slid more than once on the icy ground as he fought the weather for all their sakes. Essa was a scowl before him, mood blacker than the clouds. She hadn’t said more than a dozen words to him and none since she yanked him up onto the back of her horse at the depot. Not that he could have heard her over the snowstorm. Cullen clung to her waist, distracted—but strangely comforted—by the many small adjustments her muscles made to keep them both in the saddle.

Maker’s breath! The woman was warm and stronger than he had expected, which was ridiculous really. Of all the fantastic things he had seen her accomplish, riding into a storm like the hero of a gothic romance should not have been the one that had him as addled as…well, he refused to continue the comparison. Cassandra was going to give him grief enough as it was and Cullen was--by all accounts including his own--a pragmatic individual, rarely prone to such fanciful wanderings. He could only blame the trembling cold and the dangerous night for the turn of his thoughts.

Well, and the unavoidable fact that he was head over heels in love with the infuriating woman before him.

“Lean forward!” Essa turned her face back toward him and the wind teased his ears with her words before spiriting them away. “And hang on. We’re about to make the climb.”

The short path up from the beach was difficult enough on foot when the weather was nice and he had both feet on the ground. Cullen could count on one hand the number of times he had ridden a horse. Those had, of course, been service equines, possessed of even tempers and modest behavior, easily commanded, and generally moving with placid grace through festival crowds or parade details. They were nothing like Essa’s Geri, who usually ambled about the dunes doing his best impression of a shaggy moor pony rather than the wild charger he appeared to be tonight.

The forder surged forward, hooves digging into thick sand then scrambling up the narrow trail. His big body was forced almost vertical--Cullen’s and Essa with him--and there were several heart-pounding instants when Cullen couldn’t be sure if Geri had all four feet on the ground. He held on tight with both legs, arms clutching at Essa’s waist, face pressed hard to the back of her wool coat. He could see nothing around them but the blinding snow, and was gladder than he should have admitted that he couldn’t see the fall that awaited a single moment’s loss of balance or faltering grip.

“Steady,” Essa soothed, and he had a single moment to believe she was talking to the horse before her hand settled, warm and capable, across the straining laces of his fingers. She held fast as they gained the summit, palm pushing his clasped hands against the hard flex of her stomach. Welcome heat seeped past his gloves with a tingle of warning and Cullen tried to recall just how long he had been out in the unnatural storm.

The horse leapt, finally gaining the headland with a jolting slide. Only Essa’s grip on Cullen’s wrist kept him seated behind her. His chin bumped the top of her head, hard enough that he would have worried about bruising anyone else as he scrambled upright, trying to catch his balance. She smelled like citrus and warm spices, like Satinalias back home. Cullen drew in a deep breath without thinking. The cold and the ice seized in his chest, the world flashing bright and golden as he coughed.

“Steady,” Essa repeated as the light spun back south, a warning to any ship foolish enough to be out on the Waking Sea.

Cullen felt the word more than he heard it; the vibrations traveled through her chest and down into his arms. He blinked spots from his vision, caught snatches of profanity as Essa threw her invective into the storm, damning him, the lighthouse, Dennett, and her sister just for good measure. Geri tossed his head with an irritated snort and Cullen felt her hand tense, spine going rigid as she murmured calming noises before she pulled Cullen more firmly against her back. He leaned into her, too grateful for the heat that radiated into his chest to make a pretense of pulling away.

They cut across the headland, wind a curse against Geri’s broad side. By the time they finally made it to the cottage gate, Cullen’s face was numb, his hair and Cari’s fur collar crusted with ice and snow. Essa pulled roughly from his arms, leaping down without apparent effort before turning back with a lifted hand.He didn’t know if he should take the offer or not, but his feet were as numb as his face; Cullen wasn’t certain they would hold him.

“Off the horse, Rutherford.” She stared up at him through the icy shadows, worry layered beneath her terse order. He would have felt better if he could have seen her eyes, but of all the mysteries in this wild night, Essa was the greatest. “He needs his stall and you’re already half frozen.”

Cullen slipped his hand in hers, clung clumsily to the saddle with the other as he slowly dropped to the ground.  His feet stung with the impact and he remembered his childhood at the foot of the Frostbacks. Pain was good. Pain was life in the cold.

“Straight to the barn,” Essa commanded, uncinching the saddle with her other hand and dragging it from over Geri’s turnout blanket. She threw the tack up onto the porch. “I’ll be out just as soon as I’ve seen to this one.”

Geri snorted, swished a tail of tiny icicles against Cullen’s back before ambling off, far less concerned about the storm than the humans. He stood, watching the horse disappear beyond the white while Essa pulled and prodded him through the gate as if he didn’t have the sense to get out of the cold on his own. He couldn’t remember when he had started shivering, he only knew that he couldn’t seem to stop. She was still clutching his hand and Cullen could feel the warmth of her persisting through the fleece-lined leather of his gloves.

“You daft…impossible…foolish man.” She squeezed his fingers--it should have hurt--as she railed at him, temper rolling against the howling wind, at least as fierce as the storm. She stopped only to latch the gate behind them before dragging him up the steps and into the dark cottage. “If you aren’t frozen to death by the time I get you inside and out of all of this, I may just kill you.”

He knew she was angry, but he had also known Essa long enough now to know that she made excessive threats only when she was frightened. She slammed the door behind him, hard enough to startle the dogs. Greta and Soldier came barrelling into small space, throats filled with rapidly fading growls when they saw Cullen.

“Fire,” Essa muttered.

It was the only warning she ever gave before casting around him. Flame wreathed her hand, caught immediately on the wick of the old oil lamp mounted just inside the door, illuminating the small foyer, and throwing tawny light across her face. The fire faded from Essa’s fingers, and Cullen watched the lamplight move in glints of umber through the wild tangle of her hair. Just beyond her, the dogs sat in the hall, short tails wagging, tongues lolling in welcome.

Maker, it was good to be home.

“By the Mabari, Rutherford...”  For a moment she seemed at a loss for words, a rarity for Essa. She scowled up at him, face flushed, hair and clothes almost completely dry while Cullen stood, dripping and miserable with cold, on the colorful rag rug just inside the door.

“You’re soaked through and more than half frozen,” she accused.

Because clearly he had brought all of this upon himself. Cullen stared down at her, wondered just how angry she would be if he kissed her surly mouth. Eh, maybe he had.

“I was fine, you know.” Essa didn’t wait for his reply and for once she didn’t telegraph her intent to touch him or give him the chance to avoid contact. She stripped his gloves and wet coat off, threw them to floor. “There was no reason for you to come out here, and you should have known that.”

He had, but he also hadn’t cared. Cari had been worried, and Cullen had all but jumped at the excuse to come out. He hadn’t seen her since they returned from Ferelden and he was tired of wondering where they stood. Soldier whined and Cullen glanced down to see the dog’s head beneath his hand. He couldn’t quite feel the dog’s fur against his palm. He wiggled his fingers, watched them respond too slowly. Essa grunted, mumbled something he couldn’t quite catch.

Cullen yawned.

“Nope,” Essa said, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes. He blinked at her in the low light. “None of that.You have to stay awake so that I can lecture you.”

She nudged Soldier away from him with her foot.

“Apologies to your chantry sensibilities, ” she sighed. It was the only warning Cullen had before Essa began stripping him down.

His scarf, jacket, and shirt followed his coat and collar to the floor with brisk, impersonal efficiency. The air of the cottage was warm compared to outside, but not nearly as warm as he needed. It hit the moisture on his skin and his gooseflesh tightened painfully. Cullen had the first vague idea that maybe he had been out in the cold for too long.  

“I’m sorry.” She blew a warm breath across his neck as she pulled his undershirt over his head. “I know it hurts. Aren’t you Fereldens supposed to know better than to fool around with this kind of weather?”

His hands were loose around her neck, palms on either side of her throat, fingers twining in the soft silk of her hair. Cullen couldn’t remember placing them thre, but he couldn’t quite begrudge himself the attempt at affection. Maker’s breath, she was beautiful. How did he not tell her that every day?

“Cullen…”

He frowned, cleared his throat, but found he couldn’t quite get out the apology. He let her go too slowly.

“I swear…” But whatever she had been about to say was lost as she sank to her knees before him. She was griping to herself as she pulled his shoes and socks off. Essa pinched his toes, sending hot streaks of pain shooting from every digit and into his feet. “Mabari save me from protective men.”

She swept an assessing gaze up from his bare feet to his head. The smoke of her eyes hardened to flint and Cullen wondered what she saw that had her so concerned.

“Tub,” Essa announced, reaching for his belt. When he lifted his hands to stop her, she glared at him and bounced to her feet. “If you think your fingers are nimble enough, go ahead, but you’re getting naked, Rutherford, and in a tub of warm water before you stop shivering in the bad way.”

She turned her back to him abruptly, fingers still clinging to his belt buckle. Greta and Soldier scattered as Essa hauled Cullen across the short hall. He followed—what else was he to do?—arms wrapped around his chest, hands tucked beneath his arms. 

“I don’t trust my control, or I’d offer to warm you myself.” 

Candles winked to life as they stepped into the bathroom, a half dozen tea lights set around the room in crystal votives.  Essa abandoned him to crouch by the claw-footed tub. Cullen stood silent and uncertain as she switched on the tap. The sound of rushing water filled the room almost drowning out the storm beyond her window.

“You probably wouldn’t like that anyway,” she added, laugh as brittle as the ice falling from his clothes as she placed her hands beneath the faucet.

Cold water pooled in her cupped hands, spilled in a steaming arc from her fingers into the tub.

“The power’s out,” Cullen told her. It wouldn’t occur to him until later that those were the first words he had actually said to her since the depot. Essa’s head tipped to the side and she studied him too carefully.

“I know.” She nodded to the water. “But I can warm the water, and you’re…well you’re starting to scare me.”

She stared up at him, and what a face she had! Eyes inscrutable despite her confession, lips drawn into a severe line. He wasn’t used to having someone worry over him, but he couldn’t imagine that he was in such bad shape. Cullen glanced quickly to the mirror above the sink.

“Oh.” Even in the flickering candlelight, he could tell it was bad. He looked past his sodden curls and wind-burned face to meet the half-dazed stare of a man who had been too long at the mercy of the elements. He knew the dangers of exposure. His parents had drilled the signs into him and siblings and he had three of the four, he realized, fighting back another yawn. Four, he amended.

When had he gotten so blighted tired?

“Yeah,” Essa agreed helpfully. “‘Oh.’ You have thirty seconds to get out of your trousers or I’m taking them off.”

Cullen took an awkward step away from her and Essa winged a brow at him.

“Rutherford, if there are parts of your body I haven’t seen, I’ll need a blade to find them.”

Cullen’s answering blush was immediate and unwanted. He could only hope that his chapped skin masked the blood that rushed to his face. Essa rolled her eyes, caught him gently by the elbow and maneuvered him toward the tub.

“Mabari give me strength.”

She batted away his inelegant attempts to help, made disconcertingly quick work of his belt, and slid his trousers and briefs down to the floor.

“Watch your feet,” she cautioned, voice dropping gently.

Her hand was beneath his elbow again, an unfailing support he would have sworn he didn’t need as he stepped over the side and into the bathtub.

“I’m not an invalid,” he groused.

“Only because I am a patient woman who didn’t break your legs,” she retorted, gaze so politely averted that Cullen was certain she was mocking him. “And believe me, I’m still tempted.”

“Nice,” he muttered.

“You knew that when you headed out here,” she reminded him tartly.

Cullen had no answer for that. She was right that he knew exactly what he was getting into, wrong about her not being nice. He settled into the water, found the porcelain surprisingly warm as he sank against the high curve, and knew he had her magic to thank for the consideration.The water was hot enough to sting as long he didn’t touch the cold that was coming from the faucet. Essa crouched again, face turned away from him as she dipped one hand into the flow.

“Better?” she asked.

Cullen stared at his feet, watched as they brightened to a healthy pink. “Uh...Yes...I suppose.”

He had finally stopped shivering, and in the good way. He resisted the urge to pull his knees to his chest.

“Good. I want you warm and safely tucked into bed with a brandy before I yell at you.”

He glanced at her in surprise and, as if she could feel his stare, Essa spun back to glower at him.

“Of course, I’m still going to yell at you.” Steam rose from the water and she pulled her hand away, palm shimmering with the same heat that glinted blue over the grey of her eyes. “Maybe more now.”


	5. Snowfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second (and final) part of But For the Snow. Satinalia Present. Cullen x Essa. Fluff and healing.

The snowstorm slid from fury to grace as Essa made her way back from the barn. Geri was tucked in for the night, dry and warm and munching on much deserved hay and grain, while the chickens rustled and cooed soft as doves in the adjoining coop. Hoodlum, the large black mouser who spent his time wandering between Seaside and the cottage, was curled up in one corner of Geri’s stall, and Essa had no doubt that once the forder finished his meal, the two would snuggle in together. She called soft goodnights, let the peace of the barn warm her in ways that her own fire was failing, before she shut the animals in for the night.

Cullen was safe inside the cottage, she reminded herself. The deadly cold was all but gone from his skin, and once she had some warm soup in him and a glass of brandy she was going rant at him until she felt better. He had scared her, coming out here in weather not fit for man nor beast, and she had been shaking still with worry and temper when she left him chest deep in a tub of hot water, well-guarded by Soldier and Greta. If he fell asleep—and he had assured her he wouldn’t—he would have a tub full of mabari for his failings.

A fine fall of frozen rain shooshed against the rooftops, turned to steam as it struck Essa’s too-warm body. For a moment she stood beneath the gentle onslaught, face lifted to the last vestiges of the winter storm. Snow fell quietly now, the wind appeased by whatever prayers her sister had no doubt lifted on her and Cullen’s behalf when Cari sent him to Seaside with her fur collar around his neck like some lady’s favor of old. A token for Essa not to kill him for daring to intrude on her much needed sanctuary.

She needed time. They had been back from Ferelden for less than twenty-four hours, and she still wasn’t sure what everything meant. Skyhold, red lyrium, a damn dragon. Cullen kissing her as if he needed her just to breathe before she charged off to a death that hadn’t been strong enough to take her. They had named her some sort of leader, expected her to help with what was rapidly becoming some sort of PR nightmare, make decisions about the direction of the organization she had not willingly joined.

After Haven’s destruction, Essa had spent two weeks at the new headquarters before balking, insisting on coming back to Kirkwall to wrap up her concerns and spend Satinalia with her family. Cullen and Varric had come with her, but she hadn’t expected to see them again until closer to the holiday. She had taken the first train out of Kirkwall with very clear orders to anyone foolish enough to think she wasn’t comfortable giving them that she was to be left alone for two days. Two solid days. She didn’t think it was too much to ask for  a little time to herself before she had to slink back into town to do all the jingling and mingling that she secretly enjoyed.

“How are you feeling?” She shouted through the cottage as she stepped inside, the door slamming behind her with the wind. She stomped snow and ice from her boots, struggling out of them on the rug.

“Better,” Cullen called back, sounding much more herself than when she had left. “The water is finally getting cold,” he added.

Essa almost smiled; she had told him he couldn’t get out of the tub until it did.

“I’ll get you something to put on. Just let me get the soup warming. It’s ham and potato.”

Essa grimaced as the words left her mouth. She was babbling, chatting to fill the silence that did not usually bother them. She pulled the pot from the fridge, set it on the cold stove eye and pressed her hands to the outside, heating the cast iron with a spell that would linger.  She whistled for the dogs. Soldier came lumbering into the kitchen first, front paws leaving wet prints on the linoleum.

“Did you fall asleep?” she demanded in alarm, halfway across the kitchen before she checked her rushing stride.

“I did not,” Cullen replied with a chuckle. “I only closed my eyes.  Soldier takes his duties very seriously.”

Essa couldn’t help it, she grinned. “I must say, I’m sorry I missed that.”

“He didn’t quite make it into the tub,” Cullen grumbled, voice rich and affectionate around his laughter.

Essa steadfastly avoided glancing in the bathroom as she made her way to her bedroom.

“Are you warm enough?” She asked, shucking her heavier clothes and changing into a long flannel shirt.

The electricity was out, but once she had gotten Cullen in the tub, Essa had set about getting the cottage warm and snug. It was almost too much for her liking, with a fire burning high in the woodstove in the living room, but it was cozy. Candles and lamps danced golden light through friendly shadows while the snow and ice piled up outside. Cold frosted the windows with delicate lace. In a few hours, dawn would paint the headland in rainbows and wonder.

“Quite.” Cullen spoke from the doorway and Essa startled from her fancies. “Sorry.”

He held out both hands, a sign of harmlessness that she definitely did not buy, not while he was standing in her bedroom door wearing nothing but a towel draped loosely around his hips, her dogs standing faithfully at his heels.

The traitors.

Essa turned away, finished rolling up her shirt sleeves, tried and failed utterly not to think about the first time he had been to the cottage. They had spent three days not too dissimilarly, wearing little, moving around and with one another in a treasured familiarity born of wishes and dreams and their own ignorance. They hadn’t known each other then, not for who they really were.

Or maybe they had.

“Here.” Essa pulled a set of pajamas from her second drawer, passed them to him without turning around. Cullen’s fingers grazed across the back of her hand and she tried not to shiver.  “Might be a little snug, but they should fit and they’re warm.”

“Thank you.” His gratitude was given low and sweet, almost coaxing, as if his voice might assuage either her nerves or her anger.

Essa clung to both with a scowl, darted a quick assessing glance over him. His color was back to normal, hands no longer a ghastly shade of pale. His face was wind-burned, but she could fix that if he would let her. If she could find the courage to offer.

“Get dry and dressed and under the covers.”  She snapped her fingers, pointed to the bed. Greta and Soldier sidled past Cullen, hopped up on the mattress to settle into happy rounds of wagging nubs and shining eyes.  “I’ll bring you some soup and brandy.”

She left before he could thank her again, stalked back to the kitchen to finish preparing the food rather than stand haplessly in her bedroom surrounded by memories and foolish desires. She didn’t know where they were going, but she knew they weren’t back to that. Might never be for all that those memories were shrouded in fantasy. Essa fixed a bowl of soup, poured them both a glass of brandy and avoided making eye contact with her kitchen table as she snagged a plate of cookies from the center. Too many memories there. She shook her head. Too many memories in the whole cottage if she were being honest.

“Can I help with anything?”

Cullen stood in the kitchen door, a mismatch of cheerful plaid flannel, hair a damp mass of tempting curls. Essa closed her fingers more tightly against the tray’s wooden handles, nodded back down the hall behind him.

“I’ve just finished.” She lifted the tray in his direction, was relieved when it didn’t shake in her grasp. “I can make tea if you’d rather.”

“That’s more than fine.” His lip hitched up on one side, scar winking in an almost smile as he turned back toward the hall. “I figure I’ll need something a little fortifying when the yelling starts.”

But Essa was already tired of yelling. For weeks now she had heard nothing but other voices raised in fear, anger, debate, and opinion. She wanted quiet. Needed it desperately. That was why she had come out here in the first place. She had so much to figure out, not least of which were her feelings for the man in front of her.  Months ago, his rejection had stung her, broken her heart with painful echoes from her past. She had rushed back to old comforts found herself only more bruised and heartsore for her troubles.  She had thought, perhaps foolishly, that she and Cullen were finished. That if they were lucky they might find some sort of cautious friendship.

Of course, that had been before Haven, before he had kissed her as if he needed her lips just to breathe.

“I’m not going to yell at you.” Essa followed him back through the cottage, temper momentarily banked beneath a stronger tumult of emotion.

Cullen glanced back over his shoulder. “Really?” The skepticism was plain in his eyes.

Essa’s grin was fleeting. “Maybe?”

She shrugged as they reached her room, waited as Cullen crawled obligingly into her bed before sitting up against the headboard. The dogs wagged in greeting, curling into tighter balls so that there was still room for her if she lost what little reason she had left. Cullen smiled, reached out to scratch Greta’s ear, and Essa couldn’t help but think how much her life suited him.

“Here.” She swallowed roughly and set the tray on the bedside table. “I’m going to…”

She didn’t know what she was going to do, but it definitely wasn’t snuggling up in bed with Cullen, Greta, and Soldier.

“Essa?”

“What?” she snapped, staring past him and out the far window at the snow falling onto her camellia bushes. The crimson blooms hung down heavily, all but conquered beneath the ice.

“You’ve barely looked me in the face since you got back inside.” He observed neutrally.  He reached for the bowl of soup, began eating as if he weren’t calling her on her bullshit.

Essa lifted her chin, shot him an angry glower. “Yes, well, I’m still mad at you.” She paced toward the door, focused enough on her fading ire that the words rang true. “Do you need anything else?”

“Just you.”

The confession struck her between the shoulder blades and Essa turned back to him so quickly that her bare feet slid on the rug by the bed.  Cullen caught her arm with one hand, bowl balanced carefully in the other.

“Well, I needed time,” she pulled away from him.

“And you still have it. I’m sorry that I intruded, but we were worried.” He nodded toward the window and the softly falling snow. “I don’t think your sister knows you can walk through a blizzard as if it were nothing.”

“No,” Essa sighed. “She doesn’t.”

“I told you after Haven to take your time, figure out what you want, what you don’t. I’m not going anywhere.”

She had woken in an ambulance, surrounded by healers and still srapped in his arms. Cullen, what are we doing? He had smiled, sadness and relief bright against her battered face. I don’t know, but let me know if you want to find out. He had dropped a kiss on her brow and murmured. Take your time. As if he had already held answers to questions Essa was still finding.

“Except that you might have died tonight!” Her shout surprised them all.

The dogs flinched and Cullen blinked at her. “I—“

“I mean, seriously,” Essa pulled away from his gentle grip, folded her arms across her chest and glared down at him, finally letting her temper flare now that she knew its cause. “The Marches get weather like this once every hundred years. You weren’t geared for it. Being Ferelden I would think you would have known that.”

She stomped away a few steps, spun back to face him over his bowl. “You hopped a train!” Essa exclaimed. “You would have been half frozen before you even made it to the depot.”

“I—“ he tried again.

“I don’t want to hear it!” She pointed at his bowl. “Eat while I yell at you.”

Her hands were shaking. Essa curled them into fists behind her back.

“Alright.” Cullen went back to his soup while she paced listlessly across the floor at the foot of the bed.

“There is no excuse for you taking that kind of risk,” Essa continued furiously. “Did you even once think ‘this isn’t my best idea’?”

This, she thought, with a sudden blaze of fire. This was what she feared. Not being able to protect the ones she loved. And worse, so much worse, being unable to protect them from herself.

“Several times,” Cullen admitted mildly, placing his now empty bowl back on the tray. “Especially when you and Geri swept me up like some fainting damsel.”

Essa glowered at him, fought not to smile at the mental image and felt her lips twitching helplessly.

“Is that it then?” Cullen asked carefully. “You’re angrier at me for endangering myself, than for invading your privacy.”

“Yes, dammit.” She drew in a calming breath that barely took the edge off. “You might have died.”

Cullen nodded. “Fair enough.”

“What?” She finally met his eyes then, shadows breaking against tawny light.

Cullen smiled, lifted his glass of brandy to his lips and took a slow sip. “You’ve scared me more than once since Jader,” he admitted. “Don’t get me started on Haven. I—We—“

He ran one hand through his hair, scattering water droplets. “You nearly died in the snow there,” he reminded her. “But I wouldn’t change you.”

He took another sip, waited for her to finish the comparison.

“Nor I you,” Essa grumped. “You are an infuriating man, Cullen Rutherford. Obstinate. Wreckless.”

“More and more most days,” he agreed. “You make me foolish, Trevelyan. And faithful. I don’t know what I believe most days, but I don’t believe the Maker put us in one another’s lives only to tear us asunder.”

He placed his brandy glass back on the tray, held out his hand to her.

“Come here, please.”

“Cullen…” Essa took a few steps closer to the bed, slowly slipped her hand into his. His fingers were warm enough that they no longer felt cold to her.  He tugged her down to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Will you let me heal your face?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes.” Cullen’s fingers laced with hers, holding fast when she nearly pulled back, shocked by his immediate answer.

“Really?” She raised her brows. “Just like that?”

“We can make it a trade if you like. I know how much you like keeping things even.” His tone suggested how ridiculous he thought that was, but he smiled to take away the sting. “I’ll let you heal my face, you sleep—at least for a little while—with me and the dogs. I promise not to hold you too tightly.”

Essa looked up from the tangled knots of their fingers and met his eyes, lost her breath at the mixture of tentative challenge and brilliant hope moving through candlelit amber.

“Alright,” she whispered. “But I can’t promise—“

“I’m not asking for promises,” he replied softly.He lifted their joined hands, placed her palm against his frostbitten cheek. “Just a little daring.”

Essa grinned, blinked away tears feeling as foolish as he claimed to be.

“I think we can manage that,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to hold more volume without breaking.

“Magic,” she warned, and then reached for the Fade. Essa watched his face for any sign of distress as her hand began to warm against his skin. “Is this...alright?”

His fingers tightened slightly against hers, thumb sweeping over her jaw.

“You’ll distract me,” Essa hissed, watching in fascination as his skin began to lose some of is rawness, as dead skin flaked away to reveal health and vitality. “You know I’m a shit healer.”

Cullen chuckled, breath swaying brandy-sweet against her lips. She hadn’t realized how close they had drifted, nor how much it would ache to put a safe distance between them again. Reluctantly, she drew away.

“You aren’t, you know.” Cullen leaned his head back against the headboard. His eyes slipped shut and the lines in his face smoothed toward serenity. He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulled her down until she was all but sprawled across his chest, quiet hand still pressed against his cheek.  “Not all healing is done with magic.”


	6. Fascinum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Satinalia Future. I don't think this is NSFW but it does discuss phalluses so I’ll tag it as such. Noir AU, sometime in the future. Cole and Essa and the spirit of Garrett Hawke (no he’s not dead).

[inspired by [this](http://thesecondsealwrites.tumblr.com/post/134418576779/relative-pronoun-x-i-need-this-to-be-a), which made me laugh so hard I needed the inhaler I don’t use. also, read the wikipedia article. it’s grand.]

 

She came home to find a mighty mound of winged dicks in the middle of the living room floor. It was a fascinating array of fascinum made from all manner of materials: stone, bronze, wood, real feathers for the wings. There were even colorful felt phalluses that looked like they had been purchased from an eccentric Etsy seller.

“Um,” she said.

“They are protecting me,” came a voice from within dick mountain.

“Cole?”

One hand emerged from the flagrant display and Essa picked her way across the carpet, carefully avoiding those that had fallen behind. She nudged a rather frighteningly pink member aside with the toe of her boot, choking on a dozen questions she wasn’t yet certain she wanted to know the answers to.

“They will protect you too,” he offered. “I can make room for you.”

There was a stack of empty boxes by the door, bits of silver and gold and white Satinalia paper still clinging to the drab cardboard. Essa tried to spot a gift tag, something to indicate from where the phalluses had come. She had her suspicions, of course, but she hated to kill a somewhat innocent man.

“Cole…What are the tiny…” Alright, so some of them weren’t so tiny. Some of them were alarmingly and hopefully not anatomically possible. The tax on a man’s circulatory system would be appalling. “What are the—“

“Totems,” he suggested helpfully.

Fine. “What are the totems supposed to be protecting you—“ He cleared his throat.. “Us,” Essa amended. “From?”

His hand pointed toward the window and the bright blinking neon of the sign across the street. Cole did not approve of Madame Iris’s new window display. The searing red palm with its great lidless eye had been the source of unease for a week now.

“Ancient Tevinter magic,” Cole explained waving a dawnstone relic perilously close to her arm. Essa stepped back to avoid a collision. “To ward off the evil eye. He said we should hang them everywhere.”

Essa reached up to rub her face with one hand. “And do you feel safer?”

“Yes.” Well, that was something. She had not found a way to ease his concerns and Madame Iris had—understandably—refused to take down the sign.

“So you plan to…hang a thousand winged penises around our apartment?”

“There are only four hundred and twelve,” Cole corrected, sounding blissfully unconcerned for the first time in a seven days.

“Can we…perhaps only put them in the windows?” She could only hope he would let her hide the things behind their curtains.

Cole paused thoughtfully. “And the rest in my room?”

“Agreed.” Essa said quickly. With a sigh of relief, shook his hand--dawnstone penis and all--before he could change his mind.

“Cole, I have to ask…”

She didn’t need to ask who had sent them, but she felt the need to confirm before she committed first degree murder.

“Garrett,” he didn’t wait for her to finish.

Essa nodded. “Yeah…that’s what I thought.”

She headed for the front door.

“Wait!” Cole called and Essa turned back just in time to catch the largest artifact. It was plastic, inflatable, patterned in horrifying white splashes against a ruddy skin tone and boasting cheerful golden wings. It squeaked once in protest as her snatched it from the air.

“Um…”

“For Garrett,” Cole said. “I can’t see your eyes, but I think he’s going to need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get nearly as many of these done as I wanted, and I will definitely fill the remaining prompts that I have after I get back for the holiday. I hope that you have enjoyed these and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. <3


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